Chapter 22 - Aftermaths

  Day 24

  Neo had already finished his mana conduit when the first goblins came back with their booty. What was left to do, was to finish his blast furnace, where the heating coils and the machine control system were still missing. He wanted to leave the goblins in control of the furnace and do all the work. He would just deliver the raw materials and tell them what he wanted. Later on, he probably had to improve the casing of the furnace. The heat resistant materials, he was able to create right now, would not be able to withstand the temperatures that were needed to create higher tiered alloys like adamantium. It did not matter, right now he just wanted to reduce the mana cost of his steel production.

  Luna came back to the dungeon with the second group of goblins. She left behind Biff to organize the rest of the transportation. With her, she had all of the special goblins including the chieftain.

  "Look what Luna got! Woody, Barky, empty out your bags!"

  The golems followed her command and a lot of goblin body parts hit the floor. Between the bloody mass Neo spotted some black metal ingots, a little gold and silver and a few gemstones.

  "I'm sorry for the mess. Woody and Barky overdid it a little when they attacked the enemy. I don't think we need to puzzle their parts back together, it should be enough if you just absorb them to get their blueprints."

  "Thanks, I'll try."

  After he absorbed them, he immediately hat a look at their status.

  In addition he got 20kg of orichalcum and 35kg of high steel from their gear. When Neo saw their high level, he checked how much life energy he extracted from the eleven goblins.

  He immediately upgraded his core level again.

  In addition to his next upgrade, he found two other skills in the menu.

  Neo decided to buy the research facility and wait with the regeneration facility for later. Then he looked at his new status.

  After his expansion, he would be able to compress his core again. Before he decided where to use the additional floor space, he absorbed the metals bars and the coins.

  The endurium was a nice surprise, but he wasn't able to use it right now. The other news was his ability to create high steel from magic. It would cost him 200 magic per g. Again it would be much cheaper to create the ingredients and then use the blast furnace.

  "Thank you for your hard work Luna. Is there anything you need when I'm expanding again?"

  "A training facility would be nice. If I have to improve these stupid goblins, I need some sort of boot camp for them."

  "I thought about improving them too, that's why I build the arena. Isn't it easier to let them fight each other again and again. Then we refill their numbers each time with the strongest versions of them we've got. Over time some of them should improve in rank, giving us stronger and stronger blueprints."

  "That's even better. But I still want a training ground for Mr Floppy and Biff. They are sentient and you can't have them be killed over and over again. As a drawback to their faster improvement, each death of a named creature will decrease their rank by one!"

  "Don't worry, I won't do that. I will create a training room for you near the dungeon core."

  With that said, Neo went on to expand his dungeon. He started by creating his new research facility. In addition to some iron, wood and paper, he needed 100 kg of high steel and a 500 m2 room. He decided to put the facility next to the dungeon core and move it down with the core later on.

  When he finished the room, it looked like a mixture of a library and a lab. There were a lot of book shelves, crafting tables and a lab area for chemical experiments. Most of the high steel went into building that lab. He then tried to access the room and was greeted with a new kind of popup.

  When he opened the focus menu, his vision turned grey. It took him a moment to see a few small areas that were of different color and zoomed in on them. There he found some icons connected by lines. Most of the items were gray too, a few of them looked like they were activated and he looked at them. He went through the more interesting ones:

  He immediately had a look at the Godlike mana gathering research:

  He did not know how much points he could generate in a day, but this looked like a lot. For comparision he looked at his mechanical trap design.

  With the rest of his knowledge, he only looked at his highest researched rank.

  It seemed like the scientific methods used on earth had a very high rank compared to the ones on this world. No wonder almost nobody in this world understood his approach to magic.

  When Neo compared the little area of knowledge, he unlocked in the four centuries of his life, to the huge gray fog that blocked the rest of the menu, he felt small and miniscule for the first time again in centuries. After being down for a few minutes, he decided not grieve about his own unimportance in the universe, but to the possibilities that he could get from this menu.

  Neo didn't look at his researched knowledge in the different fields of magic. Right now, he didn't have enough mana to use his high level spells anyway. When he thought about the countless research options, he selected the 'Novice mechanical trap design'. It was cheap, he needed some traps in his goblin fortress and most importantly he had no interest in researching it himself. Before he left the menu, he had a look at the next research facility tier:

  The 25 percent bonus was nice and it made sense, after all it was easier to do some research in a better equipped facility. The biggest bonus would be the higher amount of researchers, but he forewent this topic for now, he needed to have some researchers first.

  To test the facility, he created a shaman and send it to work. It was important to know, if unnamed creatures could help with the grind.

  At first, the research point generation was a little bit underwhelming, but then he thought about the saying of infinite monkeys working on an infinite amount of typewriters and his mood improved. When his shamans were all back, he would send them to the research facility immediately. Biff would probably be able to create some better results, but right now it would be more important for him to improve in rank.

  The next room he created was an obstacle course for Luna. He used 2000 m2 and created a pretty basic one for now. If Luna had any special requirements, she would inform him later. With another 2000 m2 he created a firing range for magic, a small gym and a duel room. After he finished the facility, it was time to expand the rest of his dungeon.